Oracle OpenWorld 2013(上海)(原)

Oracle OpenWorld 2013(上海)(原)

Oracle OpenWorld 2013(上海)

Oracle OpenWorld 2013(上海)已经结束，我全程参与了此次技术大会。本文是我参会的所见、所闻、所思与所感，有文，有图，且无码。(2013.08.03最后更新)

Oracle OpenWorld 2013(Shanghai) lasted four days, and included over 300 keynotes, sessions and hands-on labs. 18000+ attendees, including company leaders, industries experts and developers, joined the event, which was said the biggest IT activity in Asia-Pacific area as never before.

Sessions
* Java strategy/technical keynote
Every JavaOne conference must has such keynote, which introduces and demonstrates the latest new JDK versions and features, and prospects upcoming JDK version and features. All parts of Java ecosystem, including JME, JSE, JEE and JavaFX, are involved in the keynote. I was deeply impressed by JavaFX demo by Jim Weaver. The Java champion played musical instruments with a JavaFX application; that's really cool. In this JavaOne, JavaFX has a separated track, and the technology is very highlighted by Oracle. The software giant expects JavaFX to enhance Java's performance on rich application. But outspokenly, it's difficult to take end users to install a JRE beforehand if they just want to run a desktop application.


* Why should I switch to Java SE 7?
JDK 6 has rested in peace(exactly, the version isn't completely frozen), and JDK 7 has been released for two years, and even JDK 8 will come next March. But do you migrate your JRE to Java 7? Strings in switch statements, diamond operator, try with resources, multi-catch statement, ... Do you like the compiler sugar? Anyway, the features could improve development productivity. But fork-join framework really touches my heart. Because of complete backward compatibility, you just need to run your application in the new platform, and the performance could be accelerated.

* The road to Lambda
Java has been being criticis ed for implementing modern language features, like closure. The argument around closure implementation has lasted for a long time. Finally, Lambda, the closure for Java, has been finished, and will be distributed with JDK 8. Lambda is regarded as the biggest change since Generics in Java 5. Function Programming (FP) is popular, and Java developers can utilise Lambda expression to apply FP. And JDK 8 extends Collection framework to take advantage of Lambda as powerful as possible. For example, currently we need an iterator or loop to iterate a Collection container, that's so-called external iteration. JDK 8 adds a new method forEach() for Collection interface, and we can iterate a Collection object via internal iteration, that means it's no need to care the iteration details by developers. In fact, it's impossible to debug the iterating process. And the process may apply fork-join if possible to improve performance. That sounds cool!

* Effective Scala
Dynamic programming languages are emerging, and more languages, such as Groovy, Scala and Clojure, can run on JVM, and JDK 7 introduced a new instruction "invokeDynamic" to support dynamic languages better. Therefore, I have to pay some attention to other JVM languages. The session "Effective Scala" was provided by TypeSafe, a company founded by Scala creators; Spring founder Rod Johnson joined the company as member of board of directors last year. The session simulated the style of Effective Java, and also introduced some best practices and coding regulations. Frankly, I don't know Scala syntax, like traits, totally, so I don't understand the lecture exactly. But I still obtained something new, like Cake pattern. Do you know the design pattern? I never hear it before this session, but the pattern is well-known in Scala world. It's time to learn another language, and I think Groovy is a good start-up due to it is closer to Java.

* Taobao GCIH
Taobao creates GCIH (GC Invisible Heap) based on Oracle VM Hotspot, and allows different VM to access a shared heap. In Taobao business scenario, the shared heap only stores read-only objects. All of the objects are initialized after the application is launched, and not be cleaned before the application shutdowns. Therefore, single VM can consume less memory, that means we can deploy more VMs in single machine. And GCIH cannot be accessed by GC so that reducing the garbage collection overhead.

* What do you mean, backwards compatibility?
10gen, the company behind MongoDB, presented the topic. Because old MongoDB driver isn't well designed, so it's difficult to understand and use the driver API. For example, the driver has a lot of find() methods, but how do I know which one is my want. According to the session, method chaining not only makes codes more readable, and the idiom benefits the backward compatibility as well. Generally, method chaining only handle one parameter at each invoking, and application codes don't care the sequence of invoking. In this case, it's no need to provide the methods with several arguments, and the methods are possible to be deprecated in later time due to their ambiguity. Of course, method chaining isn't designed for backward compatibility. And applying backward compatibility is still a hard job, because you don't know what would happen in the future. In fact, many and many APIs are deprecated in later JDK versions.

Appreciation Party
In the third evening, Oracle catered a small but exciting party to every attendee. Beer, snacks, professional band, beautiful girls, hot performances, ... were on the stage. All of performances were shown by Oracle employees, and we just rock!



I was on the scene
In OTN lounge, I communicated with Jim Weaver and his assistant about JavaFX and UI testing. In this event, my small dream, taking a photo with Java mascot -- Duke, came true ^_^ Additionally, don't forget iron man :-)


Event Organization
This is my sixth SunTechDays/OOW, and I must say that the conference was organized the best this time. Professional agenda, considerate attendee service, delicious dessert and drinking, all of them, except for lunch, must be delighted.



Finally, I must say the event is well worth participating; join it, and enjoy it :-)